Re: [eigen] API change proposal

[Gael Guennebaud <gael.guennebaud@xxxxxxxxx>]

hm... when we had this debate for the first time I felt alone in favor
of references so we chose the use of pointers and now everybody is
against this choice... Actually the main (unique) motivation was to
emphasize the output parameters when you read an existing code (and you
are not familiar with Eigen). For instance, when you read:

m.foo(a, &b);

you don't know what is a, b, or foo, but it is quite obvious that b is very likely to be an output.

Anyway,
I think it is a bit late for such a change. What could be done is to
add overloads but that would clutter the API, so I'm puzzled.

cheers,
Gael.

On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 3:00 PM, Andre Krause <post@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Tim Hutt wrote:
> 2009/7/24 Hauke Heibel <hauke.heibel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>
>> You can pass null, right? The function will simply return. What else
>> could happen?
>
> Obviously you never used gnome back in the day! Segfaults left right
> and centre. Just because it is a good idea to check for NULL doesn't
> mean every function does it in practice.
>
>
>

very true. it can happen and hence it WILL happen that pointers go unchecked.

its ridiculous to use pointers if you can - without any differences /
limitations - also use non-const references.

-- 
Gaël Guennebaud
Iparla - INRIA Bordeaux
(+33)5 40 00 37 95